Japan: Government cancels purchase of unsafe Australian barley

Japan cancelled the purchase of 20,000 tonnes of Australian food barley after the shipment was found to contain too much pesticide, Japanese health and farm ministries officials said, according to Reuters, May 14.

"We have found pesticides that exceeded our standard for the (barley) shipment which arrived last month," a farm ministry official said.

The farm ministry official said the ministry decided to cancel the purchase of the Australian barley as the shipment failed to meet Japan's food safety standard under the contract.

The imported barley will not be distributed in the market as food, the official said.

The Japanese government controls all imports of wheat and barley by holding purchase tenders.

The official said this is the first time Japan has cancelled the purchase of wheat or barley.

He added that the shipment of barley which arrived last month was from a tender that was held in February.

On Feb. 28, the farm ministry conducted a tender under the simultaneous buy and sell (SBS) system, in which it bought 20,000 tonnes of barley from Australia.

The SBS tender scheme allows users to negotiate directly with trading firms and decide the grain's origin, price and quantity before they send bids to the government.

Japan's major trading company Mitsubishi Corp 8508.T acted as an agent to import the shipment.

"We've informed this matter to the (Australian) embassy here and the trading house," the official said.

"We have asked them to investigate the cause of the problem and we are hoping they will provide us with the result (of the investigation) swiftly."

15 May, 2008